OryxSim and FS2020

OryxSim and FS2020

As a flightsim enthusiast I’m following the developments surrounding FS2020 with great interest.The screenshots no doubt look fantastic and I can only commend the team at Asobo for their fantastic work.

What does this mean for OryxSim and its sceneries? This is a question I have been receiving but have been unable to answer in any meaningful way. What I’m about to line out next is I’ve been doing and the most logical way forward at this point.

I have
avoided spending time specifically for FSX and Prepar3D. Instead I have been
spending time looking at my general development processes, particularly when it
comes to 3d buildings. It’s clear that this area in particular that OryxSim’s
current products fall short.

All
sceneries currently available were entirely built in Gmax, which doesn’t have any
rendering capabilities. Anything in terms of shadows would have to be added
manually. You can imagine that this was highly consuming. Though Gmax still
feels far more comfortable, I’m increasingly working in Blender. What about 3dsMax
you may ask? The answer is rather simple: I’m outside of the area that offers 3dsMax
Indie licenses and the regular licenses are not worth the investment at this time,
especially given the fact that 3D Modelling is not my main line of work.

It will be still
some time before I’ll be able to produce meaningful Blender objects that could find
their way into sceneries. By the time we’re there (which will likely be 2-3
months from now) it hopefully has become more clear when FS2020 will be available
and what the requirements are in terms of development. By then, it will hopefully
also be clear how much commonality there will be between FSX/Prepar3D and FS2020
development. The higher the commonality, the more likely it will be that I will
at least patch up existing sceneries (think along the lines of terminal
expansions etc) for those wishing to stay with FSX/P3D. Although there were
initial plans to provide full new 2019/2020 editions of some of the sceneries for
these platforms, the efforts this would take seemed not a wise investment of
time.

Given the
many unknowns I can share generally what I think will be the plan for each individual
scenery, but this is obviously very much subject to change. Also licensing
wise, I cannot guarantee that existing customers will receive upgrades for
their current products. Below is a general outline:

Canadian Sceneries

Product was
not particularly successful and its value (Landmarks in Alberta) may be limited
depending on what FS2020 decides to include. Chances are that this product will
be discontinued.

Castlegar West Kootenay (CYCG)

Candidate
for an update. Next in line after CYLW and EHEH.

Chilliwack (CYCW)

Candidate
for an update.

Kelowna (CYLW)

Product is
first in line for FS2020 update. This will likely be a great for FS2020 given
its surroundings. A 2019/2020 Edition of this product was previously under
development.

Toronto-Pearson (CYYZ)

This is the
most difficult to call. As CYYZ was already featured in some form in default
FSX and find it highly likely that FSX will feature a highly detailed version
of this airport. A lot will depend on how detailed the version of this will be
and to what extent that there will be a point in developing a scenery. Based on
the object library that I still have (Github here) there
may be a room to develop some freeware out of what I currently have to
supplement the default version of FS2020.

Developing
a full scenery for FS2020 is not a realistic option at this point. Given the amount
of detail development will require it’s not something for the single-person
shop that OryxSim currently is.

Canadian Airports 1

Canadian
Airports 1 is a bundle of Okotoks, Castlegar, Chilliwack and Kelowna. As
mentioned above, three of these will likely receive an update but there probably
won’t be a full 1-on-1 replacement.

Other regions

Eindhoven (EHEH)

This product had originally a 2019 Edition planned and
will be one of the main priorities once FS2020 is available.

Muscat (OOMS)

Muscat is currently unlikely to receive an update. In
fact, I’m considering discontinuing the product altogether as the scenery is
since the recent expansion no longer representative of the actual airport.
Updating this would be an enormous amount of work.

Salalah (OOSA)

Salalah is the most likely of the Oman airports to
receive an update. It of course, also has undergone a significant expansion but
the work here would be nowhere near the amount of work required for Muscat
(OOMS).

Khasab (OOKB)

There are no current plans to update Khasab. In light of the recent Airports episode from the FS2020 team, the value of doing so is likely to be very limited.

Conclusion

There’s a whole lot happening behind the scenes. Once some timelines become apparent (I’m dependent on information regarding FS2020 here) I’ll be more than happy to share it here.